Amtrak had this ingenious idea which, to be honest, they ran with after it was originally imagined by an author named Alexander Chee. Chee was quoted on a tweet saying it would be nice if the always-late national rail company of the United States allowed writers to write on their trains because he believed riding the rails is so stimulating to writing. Subsequently after a retweet, Amtrak asked the original tweeter and the re-tweeter on Twitter if they wanted to do a "residency" on one of their trains. And from this rare move of quasi-governmental/corporate spontaneity, the #AmtrakResidency program began.
I thought that getting write on a train, for free, would be awesome. I love trains, or at least the idyll of it. I have been fascinated by national commuter rail systems throughout Europe because of how efficient it is. I love being able to go to distant points of the country, even the globe, without any effort. The views on a train seem to be great no matter which train you are on on planet Earth. I will have nothing to do but to write, but I'll have the time and the space to do that, which is especially good since I don't do much besides blog on here. Finally, even though Amtrak remains horridly inefficient, hey, why would complain if Amtrak allowed me to come on board on its dime?
So I applied online. It was really short, and thankfully they didn't ask for samples. They had a few questions about why I would want to write on a train trip, which in my case would be the Empire Builder, probably from here to either Seattle or Portland and back (needed to get back in writing shape) and what kind of writing I would do while riding (not necessarily travel writing, but anything that strikes my fancy, thanks to Amtrak). I didn't think I had a chance since I'm nothing more than a blogger, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, you know?
Late last month they revealed the 24 winners. And although I knew there were vastly more talented and successful writers who would (and should) get these residencies, I didn't think I would be utterly outgunned by those who won.
In other words, I kind of thought that those who won would be authors who are published, but did not have much renown -- you know, people who teach in college to put food on the table. I had absolutely no idea of the caliber of writer, and celebrity, of those who applied. There was no damn chance in hell for me to get a train ride if these are the people who were picked. I mean, look at this list -- I know some of the writers who snagged a residency. For example, I've been a subscriber to Entertainment Weekly since Issue #10 -- I regularly read Lisa Schwarzbaum when she wrote, then did film reviews. I was competing against her?
There are three other people I know who will take up residencies on Amtrak. I listen to National Public Radio. Sometimes I'm driving around at the 7 o'clock hour, when Minnesota Public Radio airs Public Radio International's "The World." The host, Marco Werman, is going to be on a train. I follow baseball blogger Craig Calcaterra on Twitter. Hell, I saw Saul Williams do a poetry reading at the Icehouse last year because I remember jamming out to his song "List of Demands" in that kick-ass Nike commercial!
And he applied to #AmtrakResidency?! Why in the hell would he need to? I think he could afford the cost of the trip. Damn, he could afford to write in his apartment! I can't. I'm a starving artist, and I could use the inspiration of a free trip on Amtrak. But noooooooooooo, I guess they're looking for people who already are accomplished writers to be inspired while sleeping in an Amtrak car into writing some more.
Man, I can't compete against that. If I knew that a certain amount of mass media notoriety was a prerequisite into applying, I wouldn't have bothered to apply. But it seems kind of unfair that residencies have been given to people who have "made it." I kind of thought that #AmtrakResidency was conceived as a way to give struggling writers their big break, those who could not only use the stimulus of being on a train to produce good work but also could benefit from the promotional lift of taking part in a first-of-its-kind program. The oft-maligned Amtrak has received good PR with this, and a certain type of writer could have as well. It's a waste, then, to give these precious trips to those who've had a byline on a national magazine, or host their own radio show, or have thousands of followers on Twitter, or had their songs on commercials. What I once thought was a coup for a company that needed one turned into yet another case of the rich getting richer.
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